Dawn did not rise gently.
It tore across the horizon in streaks of iron-gray and bleeding gold, as though the sky itself resisted the day that was coming.
The full pack assembly gathered in the courtyard below the east balcony. Stone pillars cast long shadows over wolves standing shoulder to shoulder, their expressions guarded, uncertain, tense.
Alessandro stood above them, unmoving.
Elara remained at his right, silent yet unbowed. The bond between them hummed beneath the surface—steady, alert, alive.
Lucien's envoy had not yet arrived.
But the damage already had.
A murmur rippled through the assembly like restless wind.
"He invokes arbitration."
"Romano's clause."
"External oversight."
Tsk.
Uff.
The words passed like poison.
Alessandro felt it before he saw it—the fracture.
The pack was not unified.
Not fully.
The bond between him and Elara pulsed sharply.
She felt it too.
He did not look at her, but he knew the exact rhythm of her heartbeat.
